SLAP ON THE WRIST: EOS maker Block.One must pay $24 million in penalties for conducting an unregistered securities sale, the SEC announced Monday. The SEC said that Block.One “raised the equivalent of several billion dollars” over a one-year period in an unregistered ICO. Block.One agreed to settle the charges, according to the SEC. The fine amounts to 0.58 percent of the initial $4.1 billion raise. Full story
ISTANBUL COMES EARLY: Ethereum test network Ropsten has forked into two chains following the early activation of the system-wide upgrade, Istanbul. “It appears there are two different chains mining the Ropsten test network. There are miners mining on the old [Ropsten] chain and miners mining the new one,” explained Ethereum Foundation community manager Hudson Jameson, adding in a tweet: “This is what testnets are for!” Originally expected to activate on Oct. 2 at block height 6,485,846, Istanbul arrived two days earlier than planned due to unusually fast block confirmation times. Full story
SLOW START: The Intercontinental Exchange’s highly anticipated bitcoin futures contract mustered just $5 million of total trading in its first week. According to the exchange’s Bakkt division, some 623 monthly bitcoin futures contracts changed hands in the week since the Sept. 23 launch. Each of Bakkt’s futures contracts represents one bitcoin, so the total trading volume works out to a little more than $5 million, based on the current price of $8,322. Bakkt’s daily futures contracts fared even more poorly, with fewer than six contracts trading throughout the first week. Full story
DOMAINS LOST? Hackers exploited a defect in the Ethereum Naming Service (ENS), a domain registration service for the ethereum network, gaining control of the “apple.eth” domain and 16 others, digital collectibles marketplace OpenSea, which was auctioning the domains, disclosed Monday. According to OpenSea, a bug in the auction software distributed ENS domains to participants who did not hold the highest bid. Other notable names lost include defi.eth, wallet.eth, and pay.eth. As the blockchain-based service doesn’t allow users to retrieve names forcibly, the firm is offering a reward for their return. Full story
SCALING CASH: SKALE Network, a blockchain scalability platform, has raised $17.1 million to launch its mainnet. The investment consists of a $10 million contribution from SKALE Labs and $7 million in venture financing, SKALE Labs CEO Jack O’Holleran told CoinDesk, noting the numbers are not final due to ongoing accounting adjustments and asset transfers. Nineteen investors participated in the funding round, including Arrington XRP Capital, Blockchange, ConsenSys Labs, Hashed, Multicoin Capital and Winklevoss Capital. Full story | 
